


Legacy

by daggerpen



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-03
Updated: 2015-03-03
Packaged: 2018-03-16 05:02:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3475424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daggerpen/pseuds/daggerpen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The legacy of the Hawkes is written across the faces of its eldest sons. Or: in which the author is taken by the idea of bipolar Chasind Malcolm Hawke.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Legacy

**Author's Note:**

> Note from the future: This was written before World of Thedas 2 established a good timeline. I am aware of the continuity inconsistencies.

Growing up, “Chasind” is a word with little meaning to Malcolm Hawke. He hears it a lot, from his parents and others both, dotted throughout conversations that mostly go over his head.

“It’s where you come from,” his mother tells him, with long tales of a land he’s never seen that quickly lose the boy, too young to understand. The Free Marches are all he’s ever known, and he does not know why he should care about some swamp a thousand miles away over the estate of the noble his father serves, about chimes and superstitions that all others who hear just sneer at. Malcolm thinks that his parents must be fools.

He gets his tattoos when he is ten anyway. His father insists, and he can only comply.

“It means you’re a Hawke,” he tells him seriously. Malcolm just scrubs at his face, skin still burning and itching from the needles. “You’ll understand one day.”

It’s three months later when their caravan is attacked just outside Kirkwall, and they run with flames licking at their heels. Malcolm doesn’t understand what happened, why the others are angry, why his parents are scared, why the men in armor drag him, screaming, from his mother’s arms.

He never sees them again.

* * *

“Chasind” is a word with little meaning in the Circle. Ferelden is a distant land, and most have come here too young to know much outside the Gallows walls.

They ask about the tattoos, at first. He tells what he can in the beginning, lips forming half-remembered tales of Wilds and shamans. When they press for more, he begins to lie, making up increasingly outlandish tales, and the frustration turns to amusement as they swallow his words.

The novelty fades quickly, though, and Malcolm settles in uneasily with the other mages. He takes well to his lessons, magic natural in his hands, but the Templars are harsh, harsher still when the moods begin to take him.

He is 16 and terrified, and everything is too much. He is 16 and he learns to hide behind a laugh, a smile, because he is young and loud and he can do everything, because he is young and tired and hates himself, and the Templars are too glad to see him quiet for once to suspect, because he is young and pitches back and forth like an uneasy sailor and he cannot let them see his weakness. All of this is better than Tranquility.

He escapes a year after his Harrowing, and never goes back.

* * *

“Chasind” is a word with weight in the Crimson Oars. “Apostate” is too, and he trades easily on the reputation of a people he little remembers and a flame in his hand. The Templars follow, always, but a quick wit and the protection of his fellows carry him far, all the way to a Viscount’s party in Kirkwall and into the arms of Leandra Amell.

He’s courting death with every step, he knows, but he is 22 and as full of life as he has ever been, and the heiress is young and beautiful and kisses him back like he is the only thing that matters. He tells her he is a Circle enchanter, mere yards away from the former fellows who can call his lie, and amazingly, it works. He’s never been happier.

But nothing can last forever, and one day on the Docks a bolt of lightning saves his leader’s life and reveals him for the mage he is. He runs, the Templars close at every moment, but he has to see her again, one last time.

“Take me with you,” she begs, and Malcolm adds Aristide Amell’s men to those at his heels.

Maurevar Carver finds him first. Malcolm had never counted friends amongst the Templars, but Maurevar had been closest to the title of anyone, trading him forbidden books and scrolls for jokes, covering for his minor mischief.

“They’re almost here,” he warns. “Just go. For old time’s sake.”

He shepherds them from the city, unknowing into Grey Warden arms, and despite all that follows, Malcolm will always be grateful.

* * *

“Chasind” is a word he hears a lot in Ferelden, and never with any sort of fondness. The tattoos on his face mark his heritage amongst the Wilds he’s never known, and he bears the suspicion with the most charming smile he can manage. He would rather they see “Chasind” than “apostate,” and his growing family, at least, does not bear the brunt of their scorn.

Gareth comes first, not months after they’ve arrived, a bright, healthy child with quick fingers and no signs of the magic that plagues both their lineages. His eyes are the light, almost yellow brown of his father’s and the shape of his mother’s, with dark skin that bears the golden undertone of the Amells, dark, wild hair somewhere between both parents, and a rakish grin that is entirely Malcolm’s.

The twins come next, Carver and Bethany. Carver is a sullen, jealous child, who takes years to grow into his awkward frame and lacks both his brother’s speed and his sister’s magic. Bethany is a bright, cheerful child, who takes most after her mother of all of them, with her dark, straight hair and her hazel eyes; Malcolm can almost appreciate the irony when it is her, of all of them, whose fingers spark with lightning on the road one night, and then it is two apostates that the family shelters.

They never seek out his kin. The ways of the Chasind Wilders have never truly been his, and the Korcari Wilds are strange and unfamiliar. But Lothering is a small, quiet town, and the villagers soon lose their wariness in the face of Malcolm’s vivacious charm. They settle in quietly, and aside from the occasional lingering suspicion and the odd overly insightful Templar, life is quiet.

Until the day his eldest comes home with Chasind tattoos across his face.

Leandra is distraught. Even after all these years, “Chasind” means little to her either way, but she understands the wariness of the villagers, the conditional tolerance that hinges on Malcolm’s utter disconnect with his heritage. Whatever statement he had meant, she understands how it will be seen, what it may do to the family simply trying to scrape by under the notice of watchful eyes.

Bethany is wide-eyed, curious, poking at newly inked skin with gentle fingers and asking question after question. She does not understand any of this.

Carver is resentful, as he has always been. He sneers at his brother, calling him stupid and foolish. He understands none of this, either, but he can see the reaction of his mother, and he revels in the seeming superiority he can grab at.

Malcolm is silent, watching for a long moment before, quietly, he ushers his firstborn behind the house.

“Let’s talk.”

Gareth is defiant, head tilted back and eyes hard. He is 16 now, not truly yet a man, but he is strong and willful.

Malcolm gestures. “So, who did that?”

“Daylen,” his son replies. “He and the older boys are going off to join the army. Everyone was getting tattoos.”

“It’s good work.” Malcolm strokes his beard, and he feels very, very old. “You’re not running off to the Wilds anytime soon, are you?”

“No.”

“Then why?”

Gareth’s eyes drop. “... I’ve seen how they look at you. When you’re not looking. You’re not even from the Wilds and they still whisper.”

“And you wanted to make a statement?”

“Yes.”

“Do you even know what it means?” Malcolm asks, serious for once.

“It means I’m a Hawke,” his eldest replies, and Malcolm can’t help but smile.

“Yes. I suppose it does.”

* * *

He gets the scar on his nose the same day his father dies.

It’s a stupid, senseless thing. It’s just after the harvest, and the merchants who usually buy their goods to take back to Redcliffe are late. There’s worry, talk of bandits, and Gareth volunteers to go scouting. Carver, not quite 18, tries to follow, hating the shadow of his brother, but Leandra puts her foot down, unwilling to risk two children. But Malcolm refuses to let his son go alone.

It’s bandits, all right, and so, so many more than they could have realized. The caravan they’d been expecting is dead already, and they fall into the ambush while investigating the scene. They fight, Gareth fast with his knives, Malcolm skilled with the magic he is forced to bring to bear, but a hit from a flail carves out a chunk of Gareth’s nose, a long, vicious channel, and Malcolm rushes to his son’s side.

He doesn’t even have time to cry out as the blade pierces his chest, finding his heart from behind.

Gareth, stunned, reeling, is on the ground beside him in an instant, shouting words he can not even hear.

“Father-” he begins.

“Run,” Malcolm tells him simply. The light leaves his eyes not long after.

His mother cries for days, when he breaks the news. Carver yells, furious, and Gareth, so quick with his wit, can find no words to defend himself. This is the fault of his foolish pride, his own stubbornness.

Bethany, of all people, is the one to comfort him. She comes to him the night he returns, offering consoling words and a shoulder to cry on.

“It wasn’t your fault,” she insists. He wishes he could believe her.

He does not let her heal his wound. Gareth still knows nothing of his father’s people, but he knows they wear legacies across their faces.

* * *

“Hawke” is a name with meaning to Knight-Commander Meredith Stannard. The Gallows has seen many escapes attempted over the years, but never another so successful as the case of Malcolm Hawke.

She knows the name the moment the reports begin to filter into her office, knows when her men bring in a girl with dark skin and hazel eyes that Malcolm Hawke’s legacy has, at last, come full circle. But she is not the only one.

They meet at last outside the Gallows, the last free Hawke fighting amidst criminals, apostates, and the corrupt Guard-Captain in his pocket. Gareth Hawke is not the spitting image of his father. The shape of his eyes, the tint of his skin, the texture of his hair all bear his mother’s influence. But Meredith knows the pull of those lips, too wide, too brash, knows the mark of the Hawke across his face.

Gareth Hawke has none of his father’s magic. But when the new Champion of Kirkwall stands, near death and yet untouchable, between her and his pet apostates, she knows that Malcolm Hawke was only the beginning of the threat.


End file.
